After almost 10 years in our house it was about time for some maintenance.  Our garden was literally a jungle and this was confirmed when we hired a gardener and he said that he had wished he had taken before and after shots.

So Phase 1: Turn the jungle back into a garden.  Now in my defence I have been away overseas for about 1 year so this could have been the time it turned into a jungle:).

Phase 2: Operation New Fence.  We got a hot tip from our local reaestate agent on fencers so I got them in. Over the years we have had a series of mishaps with the fence, eg one time while we were on holiday a piece of our fence decided to fall down and our lovely neighbours came to the rescue.  If you lent too hard the fence would topple over and Niels had devised a series of rackets to keep it stable.  Here are the before photos:

The only complicated part of our fence was the vehicle entrance halfway down the hill.  There was some miscommunication between the fencer and myself and we ended up with this.

This was corrected and now Niels and I have to fix the driveway up now, something to do with a sidewalk and suing.  I didn’t know we were in America?  The whole job took about 1 week all up so was pretty good.  One of the funny parts was our neighbour interactions, we have two of them.  The first is beside us on our street and they were fine with the replacement (didn’t pay anything) and we had to pull the weeds off the fence in their garden, so on the day that they were starting, Niels and I were in the neighbours garden at 6am ripping out banana plants, weeds and trying to not find any snakes.  The other neighbour is at the bottom on the hill and when we bought the property we were told there was an easement for sewage, so I didn’t think to contact them and told the fencers they could put their stuff in this area.  So at 9:30am non the first day I get a call from the fencer and then the phone is passed over to this neighbour and I then “listen” to them complaining for the next 5-10 mins.  So you would think as a project manager in my day job that I would have nailed this part, but no.  My solution was to send Niels over with a bottle of wine, this worked a treat and we got a card a couple of weeks later thanking “Julie and Nigel”.

Phase 3: The Decks.  Just as well I can write this and don’t have to say it out loud, who knows what would have happened in Phase 3.  Anyway, this was in three parts, the back deck replacing rotten boards, part two, replacing a railing in the spare bedroom and part three, replacing the deck out the front.  This took about 1 week also. The deck at the front turned out really well as we got Jarrah wood by mistake. This is the construction phase:

Now the first time I walked to the front door on those planks was 7pm at night, pitch black, so that was a bit of fun.  This is the outcome at the front, I am pretty happy with it:

Niels’ commented when all this work was completed was “you have done really well”, I said thank you and also mentioned that I have been doing this as a job (project management) for over 16 years…

Niels and I were very lucky to have the wee guy (nephew, Connor) come to stay for the weekend in July.  Working out at Ipswich, I met Mum at Dayboro and it didn’t get off to a good start, Mum got lost and then because of the windy roads Connor had thrown up.  We managed to get home safely and Niels cooked us diner.  Connor decided to check my hair for something…

We hadn’t seen Connor for a long time, so we took him to Toy World so he could choose his present.  I left Niels and Connor at it for about an hour and guess what they decided on, Lego, and Niels had to get himself some too…

So as you can imagine I had a very quiet day as they go into it.  Not sure who did more of the building?

Now we asked Connor what he wanted for dinner on the Saturday and he said lamb shanks.  Well that wasn’t what we were expecting, but I think I know where he got the idea from… Mum?  Anyway you can guess what we did that night?

And the next morning.. Must have been a bit cold.

So we then went for a bike ride around New Farm so Niels drove the scooter and we loaded the bikes into the Little Lorry and off we went to New Farm and then rode around.  We had lots of fun.

We then drove home, got packed and drove Connor back home, but before we could do that, something had to be finished, what could that be?

A great weekend had by all!

 

Well it has been some time since my last confessional (post).  I am getting a hang of this working caper interfering with my leisure activities.  Niels and I entered into the Giant 3 Plus 3 2 day mountain bike race in July and we competed as a team, “Team Caddy”.

So I prepared the packing list and our first road test for the Little Lorry.  It all fitted in easily. 

We arrived at Hiddenvale, Grandchester, about 60km west of Brisbane in the late morning and set up our camp site.  We moved the frame that holds the bikes outside and locked them up and then set up inside using a swag king single mattress.

It was very busy as you can see.

After the camp site was set up we then did a 3 hour endurance race and because we were in a team we each did a lap and then tagged one another.  Because of our supreme fitness or lack of it we only did one lap each and then headed to the hot showers supplied.  We had ordered dinner so at 6pm we rocked up and had a lovely dinner and then enjoyed the lights.  It was Xmas in July.

It was pretty cold that night however we were cosy and slept for 12 hours.  The next day we rode for a bit longer and rode together.  The tracks out there are amazing and the Little Lorry passed it’s first test, us on the mountain bikes not so much.